


Poultry Slam '99

by Tassos



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen, farscapefriday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-17
Updated: 2007-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-02 11:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many constants in the universe. Chicken is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poultry Slam '99

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the farscapefriday _This American Life_ Challenge

“Crichton!” D’argo’s voice crackled over the comm making John drop the un-orange-like fruit he’d been fondling and the vendor squawk, “you pay for that! You pay for that!”

John scooped up the fruit and tossed it back in the crate. “D’argo, what?” he asked, waving off the vendor who shouted, “you Peacekeepers don’t scare me!” John shot him a disbelieving look that had him backing off.

“Crichton, we need you at the meat stall. Now.”

“What? D’argo –”

“Just get here, Cricthon,” Aeryn’s voice interrupted. “You have 500 microts or you’re not eating your ‘cheecken’ tonight.”

“Chicken,” John muttered, wondering just what was going on now. He broke into a run as best he could in the crowded market, jostling past the fuzzy natives who were selling a surprising variety of fruits, and the shoppers with too many baskets and children to hold onto. It was like the Farmers Market only, as everything on this planet, a bit too pink.

Thankfully, the meat market was noisy and easy to locate. John only had trouble getting to it through the crowds. He wasn’t too worried about trouble; Aeryn had sounded annoyed and not tense, but he also knew better than to think everything was peachy.

He was right. “Whoa!” John stuttered to a stop at the stall where Aeryn and D’argo were both glaring – with rifles – at what had to be the proprietor and three meaty furballs who glared with their own guns back. “Are those ours?” he asked blinking in surprise at the weapons.

Aeryn cocked her head in his direction but didn’t look away. “Right.” She let the barrel of her gun drop the tiniest amount. “He’s here. Now it’s all fair.”

The owner spat at her feet, yellow-green mucus to match his greasy fur. “You lucky I nice,” he said. He turned to what looked like an exterior office, a desk inside a three sided tent with paper and chicken feathers everywhere, and grabbed a rifle from the rack on the right. It was like the one his crewmates and the furballs were carrying, and before John could even ask what was going on it was slapped into his hands.

“First gate for Tetchy,” the owner started leading them to the pens where the chickens – if chickens had four feet and were on Speed – were squawking like a cocktail party.

“Um, Aeryn, D, care to explain?” John trotted after his crewmates who still looked ready to kill anything that crossed eyes at them.

“He was trying to cheat us,” D’argo growled.

“So he gave you guns?”

“Inkshots,” Aeryn said disdainfully, rolling her eyes at John’s obvious confusion. “Ink. Shots,” she repeated slowly.

And yeah, John got it, and now that he looked at the rifle, he could see where the pellets funneled into the barrel. It was a pretty cool design actually, but he had to tear his eyes away when he ran into Aeryn’s back. They were at a platform that rose halfway up the fence of the pen where they were apparently leaving Hairy, Curly, and Mohawk. The owner led them on to the second platform on the adjacent side. “Okay. This might be a stupid question,” said John, “but why the hell do we have paintball guns?”

“It’s how they divvy up lots here,” said Aeryn.

“Any shots before signal,” the owner turned as they reached the platform. “You pay, I keep.”

“That won’t be happening,” D’argo said sharply, but the owner just spat again and huffed back to the other side of the pen. There were a lot of ugly chickens in there but they didn’t fill up the space and instead ran around making noise as if their heads were already cut off. Spatters of color littered the dirt but not the birds.

“Why couldn’t we find another seller?” he asked. Aeryn reached down and offered him a hand up, which John took.

“Us and what currency?” she asked, swapping rifles with him for a moment to load it and check his sights. It snicked and the pellets clattered into the barrel. “Trigger, recharge, don’t miss,” she ran her fingers over the pertinent parts for him before handing it back.

“This guy offered us the best rate on a shot lot,” said D’argo. “Then his buddies showed up.”

“The more we shoot, the more we keep?”

“That’s the idea,” said Aeryn. “Don’t forget to track your shots. It’ll probably pull to one side or the other.”

“Great,” John muttered. Carnival, not Farmer’s Market. He didn’t have time to draw more unsavory analogies to county fairs because there was vague shouting across the chicken noises and suddenly they were making more noise, if that were possible, and John realized that it had started.

The home team was pink and they were brown which was really mean since the paint or ink or whatever blended into the slightly lighter shade of the feathers.

“John!” Aeryn snapped, and John started shooting. And shooting ducks in a pond it wasn’t. The chickens were fast, and damn if his rifle didn’t pull to the left just enough to make him miss every shot before he finally said, “frell it,” and started herding the chickens instead. Aeryn and D’argo were having a lot less trouble with aiming. Which scattered the chickens more. John gave up and quit trying to be smart about it.

It was kind of fun actually. A mess of birds and noise and a crowd gathering to watch on the other side while they and the Three Amigos splattered paint everywhere. “Yeah! You see that?” John shouted when he knew for certain that he’d hit a chicken mid jump.

“Yes. You can shoot a gun,” D’argo deadpanned, but John barely noticed in favor of whooping when he got another one. It was over too quickly after that. A chime rang out over the terrified birds, signaling the end and a bunch of furry kids ran into the pen like puppies to split up the lot.

“How you think we did?” asked John as he jumped off the platform after Aeryn and D’argo. The two were walking quickly to the main gate where the owner was scowling, obviously not pleased with how his little shoot out had turned out.

“You cheat!” he shouted at them with an accusatory finger.

“We did not –” Aeryn tossed her paintball gun at his feet and drew her pulse pistol – “cheat.”

“Whoa!” John threw up his hands at the sudden rise in tension. The Three Musketeers were getting closer, not happy, nosiree. Their little pile of chickens was getting bigger but still seemed to make up less than a third of the flock. “There’s no need to get trigger happy here.”

“We paid your price and completed our part of this transaction,” said D’argo. “Honor the agreement or die.” The owner swallowed visibly up at all seven feet of luxan warrior who hadn’t even bothered to draw his weapon. John knew from experience how intimidating that could be, but at the moment he was more worried about the other three and not getting shot.

“D’argo, I’m sure there’s been some sort of misunderstanding,” said John, inching forward to try and head this showdown off. “If we all just take a step back, lower the guns – ”

“Crichton. Shut up,” said Aeryn, not a muscle twitching. “You have 500 microts to get our cheekens prepared for transport,” she told the owner.

“Chickens,” said John, “and would you put your gun down?”

Gunfire erupted around them, rifles as well as Aeryn’s pulse pistol. It was over in seconds. The crowd that had gathered was shrieking, but in fear or for the show, John didn’t know. D’argo had knocked him to the ground but not before they’d both been hit. A sharp pain burned in John’s side and on his arm. His hand came away pink.

“They shot us with paintballs!?”

The owner wasn’t so lucky. He was screaming, but other than singed fur, he didn’t look hurt.

John blinked over at Aeryn who had thrown herself behind a fencepost. “You missed?” he asked, not quite believing it.

“Like you would have hit him,” she retorted. She rolled her eyes at him as she got to her feet. “Now,” she stomped over to the owner and dragged him to his office. “I missed on purpose that time. I won’t next time if you don’t get our cheekens packaged up as quickly as possible.”

The owner stared at her balefully, but in the end shouted for the children to hurry up and called his crew over. It took longer than 500 microts before the chickens were tagged and bagged and on their way to Moya, but happily without further problems.

For dinner that night Zhaan made the delvian version of chicken soup and Rygel laughed at John and D’argo’s pink polka-dots that refused to wash off.

“For someone two feet tall and green, I wouldn’t talk,” John told him as he took a seat at the table. That was all it took to get Rygel started on respect and interspecies relationships and how John really was as stupid as he looked.

“Rygel shut up,” said Aeryn. “He actually helped get us this food, unlike some people who were off getting arrested.”

“I wasn’t arrested,” Rygel drew himself up. “I was inconveniently detained.”

John blinked twice at the compliment, staring at Aeryn. He hadn’t helped much. He’d hit maybe two chickens and gotten her pissed at him. Watching her now as she and Rygel argued, John wouldn’t have thought she even noticed he was alive. But then her eyes flicked to him, briefly, the corner of her mouth hiding a smile.

John shook his head as Zhaan’s told her version of events. It had been an odd day, but a good one, he thought, sneaking another look at Aeryn. And as John was learning at this end of the universe, that was enough.


End file.
